Slocum 428 Read online

  He knew this wounded creature was on his right side, had heard others waking up and sounding pretty grumpy to his left. And he knew, too, that he had rolled to this spot from directly in front of him, but beyond that, he had no idea what was in this place.

  Sitting in one spot has never gotten you a thing, Slocum, he told himself. And at that moment, when his limbs were barely able to function, when they felt as if they had been dipped in kerosene and set alight, he felt fur brush against his face, something else swat his legs, another something—was it a paw? a hand?—snap at his head, sending it jerking to one side, a mere tap but the power behind it was great, that much he could feel.

  And all along, the din of growls and barking, savage noises, of low chuffing sounds, mingling with the stink of these critters, increased in sound and intensity until he felt as if he could take no more.

  “Now or never,” he muttered, not hearing his own words, barely able to keep from gagging as he took in shallow breaths, expelled them quickly, all through his mouth.

  Slocum pushed himself forward onto his knees, knife still clutched tight in his fist so that he might make outward slashing moves or downward jabs. His left arm collapsed with his feeble efforts. He righted himself and kept going. If these creatures could see in the dark, why weren’t they attacking? What were they doing? Playing with him? To what end?

  He considered it a small gift of time, and took full advantage of it. All around him the sounds grew louder, the smells nastier, but though he sensed great warmth exuding from bulky bodies not far from him to the front, back, sides, he never ran into anything the entire time he scrambled forward. He wanted to stand upright, but he doubted his legs could support him just yet.

  Another clout, then another. And rising from the midst of the grotesque sounds all around him, Slocum swore he heard something like . . . chuckling? Nah. Not even possible.

  Another swat sent him sprawling sideways. He got up, the chuckling sounds increased—he was without doubt now that it was definitely a laugh-like noise—and something else pushed him from behind, sending him scuttling forward, his hands and knees barely able to keep him from falling. He nearly pitched face-first to the smooth-worn floor, when just before him he saw a dimness in the dark.

  At first he kept clambering forward, expecting more punches and swats, but none came. Then he reminded himself that they were, after all, only playing with him. Had to be. That would account for the fact that they hadn’t killed him when they plainly could have—or tried to. And it would also account for the fact that he had been hearing a steady and rising chorus of what he could only describe as chuckles and laughter.

  Let them laugh, he thought. He didn’t care. All he wanted was to get the hell out of there. And the dim glow that he’d seen was the one and only thing he headed for. He felt another seemingly halfhearted swat, then nothing else as he crawled forward, the dim glow becoming brighter with each shambling lunge he took.

  Closer and closer to the light, which grew brighter and brighter the closer he drew. And then he smelled fresh air and felt it waft over him—at least it was fresher than what he’d been subjected to inside. And all of a sudden he was out, sliding into low drifts of snow, blue-white in what proved to be afternoon light. The path down which he slid and stumbled and tumbled looked well used, but was hardly in a straight line, winding as it did through snagging trees. Finally, he looked upslope behind him in the dimming day. He spun fully, squared off, and waved his knife with menace before him. He saw nothing.

  No huge creatures slamming down the hillside toward him, nothing like it. If he didn’t have the sore head and sides and arms and legs to prove it, didn’t have the nose that still felt packed with the godawful stink of that dark, dank, cave-like place, he might not believe he’d had the experience at all. But he had.

  “John Slocum!”

  He turned to see the source of the shouting, downslope from him and working her way up. Hella, the wild mountain woman, hustled upward on her snowshoes, clouds of light snow rising from behind each shoe as she approached.

  “You’re alive,” she said, smiling at him with what looked like genuine relief. It made him feel good.

  They both looked at each other a moment. It felt to him as if each knew what the other was thinking. Finally, he said, “Friends of yours, I take it,” jerking his head upslope.

  She nodded. “They pinned you, eh?”

  “How did you know?” he said, rubbing his arms, bending to rub his legs.

  “It’s what they do.”

  “To what . . . or who?”

  “To whoever or whatever they plan on scaring—”

  “Or eating?” said Slocum, straightening and sheathing his knife.

  She nodded. “Yes, I’m quite sure a bear could eat a man if he were—”

  “A bear? I thought for certain you were going to tell me it was skoocooms.”

  She snorted, her hands on her hips. “Skoocooms? Do you seriously think, John Slocum, that there are a bunch of overly hairy people running around the woods with no clothes who live in caves without any source of fire for cooking or warmth?”

  What Hella said may have been comical sounding, but the way she said it told Slocum he had crossed some sort of thin line with her, one over which she wasn’t about to argue. Or maybe she was pulling his leg again. At this point he didn’t much care.

  “I only meant that it’s pretty unlikely, you have to admit,” she said.

  “Yep,” he said.

  They walked downhill in silence.

  “You left Jigger alone at your cottage?”

  “Not alone—he’s in charge of the frostbitten bastard.”

  “I’m surprised you’d leave him there. Ten to one he’s gone when we get back.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s one ticked-off little man. If you were in his boots, what would you do?” Slocum watched her face in the low light of the trail. Slow realization dawned on her pretty features, and her eyebrows rose. Slocum nodded.

  “Whitaker’s a dead man if we don’t get there in time,” said Hella.

  “Yep.”

  “Not such a bad thing.”

  “Nope. But not something we should let happen, if only because Jigger deserves better than to swing for killing that man.”

  “Especially out of anger,” she said. “And probably no proof that Whitaker was behind any of the kidnapping stuff.”

  “At least his wounds will slow him down,” said Slocum.

  She looked at him, then sped up as she neared the dim shape of the cabin. “Don’t count on it. There’s never been a man as tough as Jigger, you mark my words.”

  • • •

  Far behind them on the rough trail they had just punched from on high all the way down to Hella’s cabin, a large, hulking shape peered from the trees. It advanced as they did, then stood still when it sensed they might stop and turn.

  It had to be certain that the man was not harming her, had to be certain that she cared for the man. And so it had dragged the man off and waited for her to come for him. And she had.

  But it was still unsure of something, and so it would follow them to make sure nothing harmed her, the one who had always lived alone in her log cave.

  28

  “By God, by God, you’d think with all the critters roaming around these parts that I could at least rassle me a bear or a moose or buck or something, heck anything, to get to town even faster.” Jigger was feeling pretty good, despite the fact that he was still seeing double. Only time that ever happened for such a long spurt was when he’d been on a toot.

  But he reckoned that would clear up before long. Hell, he didn’t care one way or another. So long as he could find Whitaker. And if he saw two of him, why, he’d just have to gut ’em both.

  As he trudged toward town, the raw cold and creeping snow seemed to find its way
under every ragtag piece of clothing he wore. He’d swaddled himself as best he could with bits of his own togs, plus whatever he could find in Hella’s cabin. But it didn’t seem enough.

  “Have to work harder at it, that’s all. Make the most of the journey.” He grunted with his renewed efforts, stomping faster in the snowshoes. Would he ever get there? “Bah!” he shouted into the blowing snow. Of course he would! It was the blows to his head that put the doubt into him. Normally he was fearless, as sure of himself as nature was that snow would fall and then summer would bring sun.

  Soon, though, he tired once again. Felt fatigue weighing him down like a sopping, cold wool blanket. He wasn’t certain how long he’d been walking, but he knew his head throbbed and pounded worse than ever, and his legs felt as though they were lengths of sappy green wood. He had nearly reached the big roadside boulder that he knew marked the halfway point, so that told him he had been walking toward Timber Hills for several hours.

  By then it was nearly dark, and he felt as though he’d been trudging along for days, with nothing to show for it save a whole lot of aching muscles, a powerful thirst, and a pounding noggin. He leaned against the ice-slick side of the boulder and closed his eyes. He slowly leaned his head back against the mammoth rock and let his confused feelings out in a long, low sigh.

  Could be he wasn’t in his right mind just yet. Could be Hella knew of what she spoke. Could be he needed to heal up a mite before he lit out after Whitaker. He sighed again and tried to work up the courage to push off the rock and once more take to the trail.

  But the very thought of Whitaker’s name was enough to force him to grit his teeth, and just at the moment he knew to push himself upright again, he heard a familiar sound, uptrail, but approaching fast. What was it?

  No, couldn’t be . . . The boys? His boys? Titus and Balzac? No other horses he knew sounded so bold in the snow. Their huffing and blowing, those steady hoofbeats drum-drum-drumming, all taken together made him sure he was hearing his boys, all right. But who would be driving them?

  As if in response, he saw his boys picking them up and putting them down, followed tight behind by his old log sledge leaning with the bend of the trail, creaking with the effort, and laden, he could see in the near dark, not by logs, but by men, lots of men. His loggers! One of them near the front held a storm lantern by the bail, swinging it in slow, wide arcs. Another man called out something into the blowing snow.

  Jigger raised his arms and was ready to shout when he heard what it was the men were shouting. It was his name, over and over again. “Jigger, Jigger, Jigger . . . ”

  They nearly coursed by him, so hard were they sliding, but he waved his arms and shouted back, even though the effort felt as though his head were splitting open anew. But it had worked. The man teaming his boys yanked hard on the lines, and the huffing team slowly drummed to a halt a good many sledge lengths past him. Jigger did his best to run toward them. He passed right by the sledge full of men and hugged his boys, Balzac and Titus.

  Within seconds, the men had piled off the sledge and were shouting, “Can it be? Jigger? It is, by God!”

  They swarmed him, hugging and clapping his back with big, mittened hands. “Where you been? What happened to you?”

  All their questions matched his own, and it took a few minutes for each side to get the basic story out of the other. Finally they dragged Jigger aboard the sledge, dosed him liberally with blankets and whiskey, and began singing chorus after chorus of old log camp ditties not fit for any ears other than those of logging men.

  And they continued on toward town to help Jigger do what he’d set out to do—and what they also had set out to do: deal with the one man they all agreed was the vicious rascal who deserved nothing but the hard and harsh treatment they would soon see fit to dole out.

  29

  “Look here,” said Hella, bending down, stripping off a mitten and palming barely covered tracks in the narrow mountain logging road.

  Slocum thumbed a match alight and lit a small candle stub. The wind had died down to the point where the flames barely guttered. Slocum didn’t trust the wind, and just knew it wouldn’t be long before another gust whipped up the fresh snow into a rough biting breeze once again. He held a cupped hand close to the flame and bent low to the trail.

  “Jigger?”

  “Has to be. But look, other tracks. Men’s boots, but no snowshoes. And hoofprints.” She moved backward on her knees up the trail, feeling with her hand, peering low.

  Slocum stayed close, holding the light-giving candle. “Sledge runner,” he said. “Lots of men’s tracks. Had to be the men from the Tamarack, likely out looking for Jigger.”

  “And you,” she said, looking at Slocum mere inches away.

  “Sure,” he said, not convinced. Still, it was nice of her to say so. It had been a damn long time since anyone had cared enough about him to send out a gang of men looking for him. It felt good to be included in such sentiment.

  “Now what?” said Hella, standing and stretching her back.

  “Now,” said Slocum, doing the same. “Now we head to town to do the same thing they’re likely doing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Track Whitaker. We have to get there in time to prevent a killing. And that’s not the worst news.”

  “It’s not?” said Hella.

  “Nope. We’re on snowshoes.”

  “Good thing it’s all downhill!” She took off at a run, trailing a laugh.

  Slocum sighed and put a hand to his sore ribs. As he took off after her, he wondered once again—and not for the last time—what in the hell he was doing up here with all these crazy critters in the mountains anyway.

  30

  By the time Jigger and his men slid on down the main street of Timber Hills, they were all seeing double, but Jigger was feeling better, he figured, than a man in his condition had any right to feel.

  “Girly! Where’s my Ermaline at?” Jigger roved up and down the street with his men, bottles in hand, looking for his daughter. “Now split up. And if any of you find my daughter or that weak-kneed soft boy, Jordan, you bring them to me. You hear?”

  Old Amos from the livery joined Bumpy from the mercantile—two of Jigger’s oldest friends—and tried to persuade him to leave off the foolishness and come with them for a nice big feed at the pancake house. But it didn’t work that way. The little logging boss was in high dudgeon, and he had his men with him. There was to be no stopping Jigger McGee that day.

  “Whitaker! You come on out here in the street!” Jigger shouted and wobbled on his feet. “I aim to drop you like the sack of bear turds you are!”

  Finally Amos and Bumpy did the only thing they knew to do—they fetched Ermaline McGee. She was at least as tough as her old man, might be she could simmer him down. She had been pulling on her boots in the foyer of Mrs. Tigg’s boardinghouse when they knocked.

  “Course I heard him. I’m not deaf. I was just about to head to the source of all that noise when you two knocked. Now out of my way!” And off she strode, the two older men in her wake, each wondering what levels of excitement the next few minutes might bring to Timber Hills.

  “There you are, daughter!” Jigger’s voice, a slurred thing from all the whiskey he’d consumed, nonetheless rang up and down the main street. “I been expecting you. Got any more bad news for me?”

  “What happened to you, Daddy?”

  “Oh, so now you care about what happened to old Jigger, eh?” He took another swig from the bottle he was holding. “Your foul father-in-law-to-be is what happened to me, that’s what!”

  Daughter or no, Ermaline knew better than to try to take that bottle of spirits away from her father. Once Jigger McGee started drinking, you’d do best to let him finish on his own. Or prepare to draw back a bloody stump.

  “Where’s that soft bastard you aim to marry anyway?”

&nb
sp; “He’s probably at home right where he should be. Where anyone with a lick of sense would be if you and your foolish liquored-up log monkeys weren’t here disrupting the lives of decent folk.”

  “Oh, decent folk, is it? Pardon me all to hell.” Glug, glug. “I thought this here was Timber Hills, the town that Jigger’s log monkeys built!”

  At that moment, Slocum and Hella trudged into town, bone-tired from pushing so hard to get there on snowshoes. The first thing they saw was the cold main street of the little town beginning to fill with people, half of them loggers from the Tamarack Camp. Rising up from the center, they heard Jigger’s rooster-like cackle, matched by a female version of it.

  “Maybe we’re not too late to save Whitaker’s mangy hide,” said Hella.

  “More to the point, we’d be saving Jigger’s skinny neck from a rope,” said Slocum, unbuttoning his coat. Though the situation seemed an easy one to defuse, much of it comical, even, given the laughter and drunken wobblings of half the people present, he knew that those very attributes could also cause it to turn on its head with fingersnap speed.

  “Hella, you try to find Whitaker. Keep him safe somehow. I’ll deal with this lot.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “Lady,” said Slocum, “I just handled a cave full of skoocooms. Don’t you think I can deal with a few drunk loggers?”

  “Ha!” she said, heading for the Bluebird Saloon and Whitaker’s office. “And I never said they were skoocooms.”

  “I like that you can lie to me and laugh about it!” He smiled at her retreating form, then shucked his Colt revolver and headed into the crowd.

  It didn’t take but a few seconds to reach the core—Jigger and his daughter. Had to be her. They bore similar facial features, and Slocum was pleased to see at least she wasn’t sporting a beard. Other than that, and her long hair and dress, you could easily match them up as father and daughter.